Beware of the Cat
by Duckweed
Summary: A young woman is hired as a housemaid for a family of seemingly odd but mostly harmless alchemists.  Everything goes well until she manages to get involved with their human experimentation...
1. Chapter 1

If you asked their neighbors, you would be told that Mr. and Mrs. Of the Light were perfectly normal people. Sure, their garden had some suspicious looking plant life inhabiting it, and there was something very bizarre about the cat, but on the whole, they were just your typical wealthy, snooty, and only slightly antisocial aristocrats.

Unfortunately for one _truly_ ordinary girl of average intelligence, neighbors do not always know everything. And this particular girl didn't know much about anything other than what her neighbors, or in some cases her Creepy Uncle Joe, told her.

And so, when this young woman arrived at the door of the sort-of-small-mansion belonging to the Of Light family, she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

She had been waiting on the stoop in front of the imposing, iron-spiked doors before they swung open to reveal a man with a horrible mustache and a butler's uniform.

"Good evening, miss. Who are you and what to you want?"

Determined to make a good impression, the visitor smiled sweetly.

"I'm Elizabeth-Anne Wretchingworm of Fifty-Four Forty-Fifth street, and I'm here to apply for the job that was advertised in the Sunday paper by the lady Hikari no Dante, requesting a housemaid able to dust, wash dishes, and do the laundry for a monthly salary of thirty-seven cents, room and board provided." She said this all in one breath, while still managing to smile endearingly.

The butler directed her to another door in the back of the building, which Elizabeth presumed was the servant's entrance. A few moments later, she was greeted at the back door by the same butler, with the same horrible mustache, and was informed that the Mistress of the house would be down momentarily to speak with her, the next time she had a spare moment. Elizabeth wondered for a moment whether it was usual for the Lady of the house to interview new servants—she thought there were housekeepers who did that sort of thing. However, she kept her questions to herself, not wanting to say anything that might dampen her prospects of being hired.

Apparently, Mrs. Hikari was a very busy person, as Elizabeth had been sitting patiently at one of the kitchen's stiff, wooden benches for quite some time before anything happened.

Then, quite without warning, the nondescript wooden door presumably leading to the rest of the house was flung open with a bang. A stately looking woman with long, dark hair wearing a ridiculously frilly red dress swept into the humble kitchen, adjusting her hoop skirt so she would fit between the counter and the table.

"I'm _so_ sorry for making you wait," the Lady Dante said, in a voice that suggested that she really wasn't sorry at all.

"It's okay," started Elizabeth, "It's been no—"

"You can stay in the second room down the hall, there are fresh sheets and a blanket in the cupboard across from you. I expect you ready to start work tomorrow morning. And don't complain to me about anything, sweetie," she added as Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something, "unless it's something _really_ dire." Apparently there was something funny about this, because Lady Dante giggled. It is worth noting that she had a rather frightening giggle—the kind that makes small children cry and young housemaids fidget uncomfortably.

The noblewoman flicked her silky hair over her shoulder before snapping her fingers impatiently.

"Flavius!"

The butler, who had been lurking in a corner somewhere answered, "Yes, my lady?"

"Where's my husband? I haven't seen him all day."

"He went fishing with Elwood this morning, Madam."

"Oh. He's probably lost, then, so go find him when you have a spare moment. You are both dismissed!"

She got up and swept out of the room.

The butler, Flavius, was left to show her to her room.

"Um," she asked as he led the way into the hall, "Do I really have to start working tomorrow _morning_?"

"If that's what my lady said, I would assume so."

"But, er, you see, I was expecting to go back home first, and I don't have any of my things, and my creepy uncle Joe doesn't know I'll have to stay, and he'll be worried…"

"I'm sorry, but I'm only a butler. If you have a problem, you'll have to take it up with Lady Dante. Here's your room."

It was a larger room than what Elizabeth had been expecting, but there wasn't exactly a lot of floor space. A decent-sized, but dusty bed was wedged into the corner of the room, along with a small wooden chest and a nightstand. The rest of the space, with the exception of a narrow path just wide enough to walk through, was taken up by books. Two walls were lined with bookcases, but mostly they were just piled up on the floor, forming several impressive looking towers.

"Um, Flavius?"

"Yes?"

"You don't think I would be able to make it home and back before it gets to late, do you?"

He shrugged. "Do what you wish. I have to go out and find Master Hoenheim. Please excuse me. Oh, and I should warn you about the cat, it's a bit… unusual."

As it turned out, Elizabeth did make it back to Fifty-Four, Forty-Fifth Street before nightfall. However, returning to the home of her new employers was a completely different matter.

Although she only stayed long enough to collect her few belongings and bit her uncle goodbye, she soon realized that one way or another it would take twice as long to walk all the way back across town carrying her case full of personal possessions.

Elizabeth staggered through the kitchen door at nearly one in the morning, barely managing to stay on her aching feet. Ignoring the cloud of dust that her mattress emitted as she lay down, she fell asleep without even bothering to make up her bed.


	2. Chapter 2

After a month of living as a maid for the Of the Light family, Elizabeth had come to the conclusion that her life was relatively good. She got enough to eat, had a comfortable place to sleep, and there was less work for her to do than she had been expecting. She did the laundry and washed the dishes of only six people, and she was only expected to clean the drawing room and the entrance hall. Aside from that, her only chore was to occasionally fetch something from the market place. When all was said and done, she really only had two complaints about her new life.

The first was boredom. She was usually done with dusting by noon, it took until after dinner for there to be enough dirty dishes accumulated to be worth sitting down to wash them, and laundry only had to be done twice a week. During her free time, she tried reading some of the countless books filling the old house. However, she was a slow reader, and didn't understand a lot of what was written in them—half the time she was on the ninth or tenth page before realizing the book was written in ancient Xerxian.

When she was fed up with her own lack of education and had a stabbing headache, she tried to explore the more remote regions of the house and grounds. This did not prove to be a particularly good idea. After just a short while venturing off the beaten track of the hall outside the kitchen, she encountered the cat. It had been lurking behind a flowerpot in an otherwise empty room, as if it was lying in wait for unsuspecting explorers. Although physically unharmed by the experience, Elizabeth had been traumatized enough not to be tempted beyond her familiar surroundings again.

Her only other reason for complaint was loneliness. She didn't exactly have very many people to talk to, as there were only two servants in the house besides herself. It did explain why she hadn't been brought to the housekeeper upon her arrival—there was no housekeeper, only Flavius, and the cook, Madam Snarfle. Elizabeth had always thought that cooks were all plump, warm-hearted, matronly women, but this was not the case with Madam Snarfle. She was a tall, thin old lady with a hooked nose who hardly ever spoke and wore her hair in a tight bun.

Besides the servants, there were three other people in the house. Master Hoenheim spent most of his either out, or in some part of the house where Elizabeth was not required to clean—such as the basement. The basement, as Flavius had explained, was where Hoenheim and his wife conducted most of their experiments. Elizabeth had not been particularly disturbed to discover that the family for whom she worked dabbled in alchemy—she was sure it explained why their cat was, well, the way it was, although she wasn't certain exactly how.

The Lady Dante was considerably more sociable than her husband. Every so often Elizabeth encountered her while dusting the drawing room, and would immediately be assaulted with a flurry of advice about how to fix her hair and arrange her skirt properly. Elizabeth suspected that Dante was a bit starved for female company, and tried to act friendly, although she often found Dante to be a little on the creepy side.

Of their son, Elwood, Elizabeth knew very little. Over the past month, she had gathered the following information: He enjoyed fishing and bird watching, and read books on the history of the gold club. Also, he had inherited his father's quietly vacant disposition and long blonde ponytail, as well as his mother's taste for strawberries and chocolate.

The only person in the house Elizabeth really felt comfortable talking to was Flavius—he was a kind, warmhearted person when he wasn't trying to act professional, which was most of the time. He reminded her a bit of the man who ran the bakery in town and had given her cookies free of charge when she was younger.

Getting sent to the market to buy food when Madam Snarfle was to busy or didn't feel up to it was one of the highlights of Elizabeth's existence. It didn't happen very often—only when there was company for dinner and the cook was kept busy making guest-worthy food. On this particular day, Hoenheim and Dante were entertaining some of their big important Alchemist friends from the government, and Madam Snarfle was up to her ears in strawberries, pastry flour, and pickled broccoli, so Elizabeth found herself enjoying the bright, mid-afternoon sunshine in a much needed escape.

Her first stop was the fish store, where she purchased three pounds of speckled eel, and after that she made her way to the vegetable stand. As she stood inspecting each lump of asparagus for imperfections, she couldn't help but overhear one of the other customers conversing with the produce seller.

"I'm not joking, there was a man in the town just south of here—I think he died. And once it takes hold of a town it just takes over and there's no way to escape…"

"That's horrible! I guess we just have to hope nothing comes of it here."

They sounded worried.

"They say the rats bring it. Good thing there isn't to many rats where I live."

"Good for you! I've always got rats because of the butcher next door."

"Just be careful, I'm sure you'll be alright. I'm more worried about travelers bringing it here—they should stop strangers entering the city."

"You're right. I've heard about what it's done down along the southern coastline. It spreads so quickly, whole towns are wiped out…Hey, you, are you going to stand there all day?"

Elizabeth jumped, blushing in embarrassment as she realized that she'd been inspecting the same clump of asparagus over and over again. She bought it quickly and scurried away.

When she arrived back at the mansion, the kitchen was filled with the smell of baking pastries. Flavius was helping out by peeling onions by the back door. Elizabeth handed her basket of eels and asparagus to Madam Snarfle and was immediately given the task of shelling peas.

"Did you have a nice walk?" asked the butler as she sat down next to him.

"Yes. It's a lovely day."

"Hmm."

There was a long silence, broken only by the soft plunking sound of onion peelings and pea pods being dropped into the bucket between them.

"Flavius?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think that some serious epidemic is going to spread to our town and decimate the population?" She said this very quickly, without taking a breath.

There was another pause.

"Things like that do happen, occasionally. One only has to look at history."

Elizabeth shivered.

"Worrying doesn't do anyone any good, you know," he added.

Although she knew he was right, Elizabeth couldn't help being afraid—nothing frightened her more than the though of a killer she wouldn't be able to see or avoid, one that could spread through a touch or even through the air…

"But why talk of such things on a day such as this!" Flavius remarked, trying to change the subject. "Tomorrow is Sunday. Are you going to visit your family again?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes. My creepy Uncle Joe will be glad to see me. He's all alone now that I live here."

"Why do you call him that?"

"What?"

"Your uncle. I've always wondered, but I hadn't got around to asking—why's he creepy?"

"Oh, that. It's a bit silly, really. There really isn't anything creepy about him, I just—"

She broke off, realizing that Madam Snarfle had been calling her. "Hold that thought," she muttered, picking up her bowl of peas and slipping back into the house.

"Elizabeth, I need you to go ask Lady Dante if she wants the eels stewed or fried. Hurry up."

"Yes Ma'am!"

The Lady Dante was not in her study. Nor was she in the entrance hall or the drawing room. Elizabeth very nearly checked the storage rooms, but as she was just outside the door she heard a sound that gave her the impression that the cat was in there, and she decided that it was probably best left alone.

Just as she had made up her mind to go and search the gardens, she noticed that the forth door down from the dining room had been left slightly ajar. This door, Elizabeth had been told, led to the lab in the basement. Without a second thought, she pushed the door all the way open and slipped through.

On the other side was a long, winding staircase spiraling downwards. It was lit only faintly by candles set in brackets along the walls, and Elizabeth had to be cautious about where she put her feet.

Soon the staircase ended, opening up to a wide room with a vaulted stone ceiling. It was empty, aside from a few cages set against the opposite wall. A low archway led into an adjacent room, from which she could hear familiar voices.

"Darling! You're a genius! This is fascinated."

"Perhaps…"

Elizabeth made her way across the wide room, noticing as she drew closer that the cages contained rats—although they appeared to be dead, she edged as far away from them as she could. She still remembered the man at the vegetable stand.

"We'll still need to experiment with it, but we're so much closer than before!"

The adjacent chamber was filled with papers—books and diagrams of alchemy circles sat piled up on the floor, and the walls there lined with shelves holding all manner of flasks and bottles.

Hoenheim knelt in the middle of the floor, examining some sort of chart. Dante stood holding a bottle of eerily glowing red liquid, looking over his shoulder. She looked up when Elizabeth entered.

"Yes? What is it?" she asked distractedly.

The housemaid curtseyed politely.

"I was sent to ask you weather you would like the eels for tonight stewed or fried, madam."

"Eels? Oh, right. Dinner. Ah, stewed, then."

Elizabeth curtseyed again and hurried back to the staircase. She couldn't see them with her back turned, but she could imagine the dead rats' blank eyes staring after her.


End file.
